Cuddles

by Dennis Fueyo

  Emelia then kicked a clump of dirt at Tom. “It would have watched over Sam anyway, Tom. Dammit! Every sentinel chooses a human to pester. We’re like their crops; they harvest energy from those we kill.”

  “Sentinels,” Tom muttered. “You mentioned them in my dream back at Fayetteville.”

  She pulled loose hair back behind her ears again and tucked it under her cap. “Anyway, the order came down from Admiral Melbourne to go with James. I played along. I knew where James was going that day on the Mud Hopper. This might be a news flash for you, Tom, but the admiral wants me dead. My whole family. You’re the only fool who didn’t know Eva was commanding from the shadows in D.C. And now she’s dead.”

  Tom glanced up. “You were not trying to help James with his depression, you wanted to dig for information.”

  “You can be so ignorant—I did want to help him! The information was a perk. And I got it. Here’s Dr. Tom Mason playing cupid”— Emelia held out one palm, then she extended the other—“and here’s Admiral Melbourne sneaking past my conniving aunt, Eva. No one tells me the truth. No one cares what I want.” She flipped off Tom, hollering, “Fuck you for not asking!”

  “Emelia, calm down,” Sam pleaded. He liked her, maybe loved her, but he also saw a puzzle piece’s tab about to snap. Broken, the vision would shatter as other pieces lost their support. “We need to respect each other out here. Please, we need to work together.”

  “Tell your father that.”

  “Emelia, we work together or someone dies, simple as that. You know this too, Dad. Botched opportunities need no dissecting here. This place”—Sam motioned to the forest—“this place wants to devour you. Steal your clothes and murder your children. Force you to inhale water and indulge in rotten food. It takes pieces of you at a time. A scrape loses a leg. A burn takes an arm. Swimming in the wrong water makes you crap to death from dysentery or go insane from brain-eating amoebas. I give you both one chance. Only one, to lay bare your grievances or accept that we all carry secrets. We may justify our misdeeds, Emelia, but we don’t attack our friends, however misguided they seem. We may cloak ourselves in darkness, Dad, but we bring light to those who protect us.”

  Juan rose and stood by Sam. “I think all three of you have dirty little skeletons in your closets. Emelia, can we kill a sentinel?”

  “I doubt it. I don’t know.”

  Juan continued, “Fine. Like Sammy said, keep the secrets or spill it, ok? And you better listen to him, there’s a reason the elder promoted him to master hunter. Dr. Mason, patrón, here’s your chance. Spill it or lock it up, but accept everyone’s choice and move on.”

  Tom’s eye started twitching again. “I will spill it.” He relaxed his legs outward and took a deep breath. “What she said is correct, Son. This sentinel, Cuddles, believes the balance of nature will return if you bond with Emelia. It has agreed to help when there is no way out. Cuddles requested you both travel to Savannah to strengthen your emotional bond. Though, now, I do not see this playing out in a Cuddles-favored ending.”

  “Why, Tom?” Emelia stepped over to Sam, cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed him. Not a peck, or a smooch. A long, deep, breathtaking plant on the lips lasting nearly ten seconds.

  When she broke the suction, Sam swore he noticed steam slip out with her lips.

  “I am in love with your son. Guess what? He loves me more than any other woman could have wished for. His sentinel is wise, and correct in suggesting to seek the Atlantians for information. But we didn’t have to fall in love. According to your dreams, Cuddles said Stone must join with Mason. That could mean anything. Maybe you and Papa become best friends. Perhaps I choose your company over my father. You assume it means Sam and I fall in love.” She shuffled sideways, moving her shadow across Tom’s face. “We both know why Cuddles wants this, don’t we?”

  Tom scowled at her and replied, “We do now. These operations have to stop.”

  “Maybe that’s what the sentinel wanted,” Emelia crossed her arms, “maybe it’s just that simple, but I doubt it.”

  Juan slapped his thigh and laughed. “Well, I would call that a successful spill!”

  Sam whispered to Emelia, “I do love you, but you need to be strategic. This game has no winners or losers, only survivors. Ok?”

  “Ok,” she said, running a finger down his chest. “Then it must be my turn.”

  “You may choose discretion or enlightenment,” Sam said. “In Juan’s words, spill it or lock it up.” He removed her cap, and she let him study her hair.

  “Only two choices,” she asked, “are you sure about that?”

  He nodded.

  Emelia kissed Sam once more, and with parting lips uttered, “Goodbye, Sam.” Ducking her head, she turned and began to walk away.

  Lou barked, “Wait!” He leaped up and grabbed her arm. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”

  Emelia yanked her arm away and asked, “What are you doing, Lou?”

  “While we are laying our cards on the table”—Lou panned his hand across—“I’m going to share mine. Cuddles told me specifically I am to stay with you, and with Sam. If not, my life is forfeit. So, in the interest of self-preservation, you and Sam go nowhere without me.”

  “Fine. Sam, don’t speak to me for a while.”

  Part 8: Children of Apsu

  “Uruk, your eminence.”

  “Yes, Issakum.”

  “The three children of the green pill travel our way. They bring the Carver Warden’s targeted one with them.”

  “Report.”

  “I found them in Wampee confused and angry. As a test, I engraved the name Carver Warden near the dead Commander Andy Ochoa while they slept. Their reaction was brash. They do not serve the Carver Warden. After some testy exchanges, they hiked to find the Carolinians tribe in Conway, South Carolina. A technological tribe, as the Divers once were, the Carolinians use vehicles to patrol and maintain roads between Charleston and Colombia. The tribe shuttled them by car along I701 to Georgetown, then down I17 to Charleston. The children plan to stay several nights in the city before finding a way into Savannah.”

  “Three children of the green pill come to us. Uninvited, uncoerced, they come willingly. This is not an apocryphal proclamation, Issakum. This is a gift from Apsu. Apsu wishes our gift onto them.”

  “They may become more powerful than us, your eminence. Should we take precautions?”

  “Notify Enlil.”

  A tall, grey-skinned humanoid stood leaning on a wooden staff; a branch taken from a dead oak, buffed smooth and notched with perfect indentations for fingers below a golden ferrule. The elderly Uruk paced in slow, delicate steps along with a rise of polished sandstone. The staff clacked throughout a great hall packed with freshly carved statues, long flowing tapestries, and glowing blue lanterns. Artifacts encased in glass housing bore long, ornate inscriptions, and every piece of wooden furniture engraved with long, fortuitous stories.

  Hand wedged in linen pockets, the Atlantian jingled pebbles procured from the ocean. Lifting out a handful to an aquiline nose, five stones of black and maroon swirls formed a pattern in Uruk’s ponged palm. “The Arnold Stone. The Emelia Stone. The Jonathon Stone. The Eva Stone. The Carver Warden. The family line that unhinged the world.” Uruk closed a tight grip on the stones. “The Masons: Lisa, Tom, and Sam. Too weak to bring renewal. For now.”

  “I look forward to helping them become strong enough to fulfill your vision, Uruk.” The younger, grey-skinned Issakum flexed finned ears.

  “Not mine, the vision of Apsu. They will change or die. Either way satisfies Apsu’s vision.”

  “What about the Carver Warden, your eminence?”

  “The door of opportunity closes on him. One last chance to murder the Sam Mason, he will not have another.”

  Chapter 21

  “You ready to talk yet, Emelia?” Sam Mason pulled a chair onto the patio of their hotel room. Gulls wailed overhead, returning fishing boats sounded their claxons, and
merchants blurted out items to exchange in their shops built atop the Charleston wharf. All scrambled for last-minute food, clothing, or profits. The great city was hunkering down, preparing for the imminence of Hurricane Ben.

  The swirling monster hurricane’s arms touched the shoreline whipping winds to 50 mph. In three hours, Ben would crawl onto the land a Category 5 hurricane and begin a stroll up the Eastern Seaboard with sustained winds not dropping below 90 mph by the time it left.

  “It must be strange for you to be back in civilization,” Emelia said, examining scars around Sam’s neck. One three-inch gash ran up his left jaw into sideburn stubble. A small stab wound rested above his right eyebrow. She ran a finger over the raised, curdled skin and across small dots where stitches once kept injuries sealed shut. “You’re scarring give you character. Mine are hidden.”

  Sam saved the conversation about his own hidden scars for another day. “It is strange to be back in the city. I almost feel motion sickness. Cars swerving around corners, people packed on sidewalks, and so many stores. In the stores, so many things to buy. Too noisy, know not how people here can think clearly. I remember Raleigh, but being out in the network accustoms one to paradise lost. Raleigh stands as a dream. Here, people act is if the Wash never happened.”

  “Did you like the drive from Conway? I would guess you haven’t been in a car for some time.”

  “I did, the Carolinians are nice tribal folk. Strange to travel on a highway that still exists, that is accessible. The ones around the Sandhills are home to gators, snapping turtles, and rapids. On the 701, I stuck my arm out and felt the wind most of the way. It truly feels electric when running through your fingers, just like the memory you gave me when we kissed on the boat.”

  “When I think back on that memory you tasted, it no longer exists. I can’t find it in any drawer of my mind. Repeating the experience with you in the car replaced it.” Emelia Stone took a drag on Juan Delgado’s vaporizer and blew a billowing cloud of steam in the air. “I wonder which other memories you’ll replace.”

  “You were going to leave,” Sam said and cracked his knuckles.

  She grimaced at the action and returned her stare to the ocean. “I would not regret the decision to leave, Sam. You said I had two choices back in Wampee, but to my surprise, you did not see a third.

  “The first choice, discretion, meant siding with my family. In recent months, I find few reasons to protect them. I loved my grandfather so much, yet Lou and your father are right. Grandpapa’s chaotic past continues to cause grief for us all. Even my father, who wishes for the best in people, slips further into the maelstrom created by my aunt and her bastard little boy.

  “Enlightenment, your second choice offered, meant siding with your father. That I cannot do. His grasp of who you are came upon threat of death from the sentinel. He sees order as a cure to chaos. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

  “Not buying it”—Sam vaped and fumed nicotine steam out his nostrils—“I do not believe all this balance voodoo mumbo-jumbo. Life is life, simple. This sentinel thing, Cuddles, has stirred everyone up into some metaphysical world of nonsense.”

  “If you took the green pill, you would think differently.”

  “Look,” Sam said, moving in close to her, “I don’t doubt you guys see weird things. I have seen your powers; they are intimidating, to say the least. But even Newton and Einstein believed in God on their deathbeds. Maybe you guys are trying to explain things that cannot be explained with current science.”

  Emelia deadpanned, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “What was your third choice?”

  “My third choice, to side with you. You see the logic in all things. Their purpose. You understand how everything fits together, interacts with each other. I saw the way your diligent mind works; your dreams, and fantasies. Like sunlight turning on green factories and mixing air to spin the world, that is how you touch the lives of those around you.” She kissed him and stroked his hair.

  This time Sam tasted a memory less savory. He caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man strapped on an examination bed. Emelia’s aunt, Eva Stone, loomed over him. Welcome to the family, Jack Harr.

  Sam then heard—or felt—a rumbling sound. So that is how the Stones captured Jack Harr. Poor man. I wonder how Eva tasted…mmmm…deliciously evil, I think that.

  Emelia’s voice flicked him back to the hotel balcony. “I wish you could see others as they see you,” she said, squeezing his hands. “Perhaps someday this will come. My love for you shields me from your shortcomings. I wanted to leave, hoping you would curse my name and turn back to safety, only you would probably be emboldened to carry the task through.”

  Emelia then pulled Sam in and hugged him, fingers locked on his shoulder blades. “Tomorrow morning,” she said while caressing his arm with a delicate finger, “we’re taking a journey none have returned from. I’m scared, Sam. I mean it. I have no idea what to expect beyond that border. People say the Atlantians have grey skin, finned ears, and use an unusual power source for energy. Some claim relatives are kidnapped by Atlantians. The rumors are strange.”

  “How? Tell me everything you know, Emelia. I need all the components to understand.”

  “When I did our laundry earlier, I met a contact of my father who confirmed all Raleigh teams reaching here before us, trying to find a way into Savannah, none returned.”

  Sam drew back: “What else did they say?”

  “That’s it. Well, one other thing that seemed unusual.”

  “You have chosen your side, Emelia. I love you.” Sam grasped her hand. “We can do this, ok? Hurricane Ben will hit in the afternoon and be north of us by midnight. That gives us a clear day tomorrow.”

  “Ok. I love you, too.”

  “What did your contact say?”

  “Jack Harr is coming to North Carolina. My father asked him to find us.”

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Storm surge smashed bay boats and tossed trawlers into the streets. Shingles ripped off raised houses and flew in the wind like adobe shuriken. An old turbine vent tore off a long-abandoned hospital roof and bombed adjoining rooms on a lower level. The new National Weather Service in Colombia reported 940 millibars at midnight.

  Sam white-knuckled the couch in his hotel room.

  When hurricanes struck, tribes evacuated into tunnel systems to wait out the carnage. Underground safety areas were dug out at higher elevations than their connecting passageways. Lower level passages allowed water to flow outward without inundating the underground shelters. Free-flow drains spewed out rushing water into ancient dells and estuaries, handling storms up to category five with little trouble.

  Locals had retrofitted Charleston in a similar design. Surge raged in and out buildings, freely flowing inland without disturbing the higher floors. Salty backwater killed crops and refuse hammered the poorer residences, but the city remained mostly intact. Residents tried to remove everything they could, but some items inevitably forgotten washed away. Furniture repair specialists and clean water consortiums kept a steady, profitable business in coastal cities not destroyed by the Wash. Most buildings had second and third floors converted to accommodate emergency parking, but absent federal support twisted arms to cut expenses.

  Sam watched the storm surge drag large boats down Lockwood Drive. A roaring crash thundered from the collapsing second floor of an adjacent hotel. Sam balked seeing cars shat out its first floor and barrel-roll down the street.

  The Wash drove the evolution of the city, removing weak structures and poor designs while leaving superior roofs and well-positioned windows. One thing did not change, however. The horrific effusion of constant wind and degradation of living trees stripped of leaf and branch.

  Sam lay down on the floor and plugged his ears.

  Shattering explosions followed punctured walls. Tinkling glass shredded paint off outside columns.

  Emelia cuddled up next to him and slipped calming feelings into his mind. The scented lav
ender of her probing mind blended in cookies with the ice cream treat of her presence. She held his consciousness tight throughout the night.

  The next morning, Sam awoke to his father, Tom Mason, jostling his shoulder. “Get up, Son. Time for breakfast.”

  Sam extended his arms to poke Emelia awake and asked, “Where is Lou?”

  “With Juan at the buffet. No doubt they will slake the night terrors away with potent moonshine.”

  “Really? No one is out surveying the damage?”

  “Plenty of time to do that today. Right now, the hotel wants to keep paying customers pleased. Come on, you two.”

  Sam followed Tom up several levels to an open atrium overlooking the city. The restaurant was unusually busy for an early morning. Clinking flatware stirred mouthwatering smells of eggs, toast, and bacon. “Holy smokes,” he said, “I have never seen so much food. Not since childhood.”

  Juan strolled up and thrust a ceramic dish into Sam’s stomach. “Welcome to city life, master hunter. Isn’t this great?”

  “People still eat like this? Even in these times?”

  “Sammy,” Juan leaned in and whispered, “take it while you can get it, amigo. This is not meant to last, but they don’t know that, verdad?”

  Sam rubbed his scruffy chin. “Si, verdad.”

  “I wish Shaquan came with us. There’s a lot of black people here; he would have enjoyed seeing us all eating together. Not as a tribe, just people of all colors hanging out.”

  “Am glad he did not come.”

  Juan’s smile relaxed. “Why?”

  “In fact, I will expand on that and suggest you stay here as well.”

  “Hijo le…what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Juan, the more I understand about our destination, the more I think this is a suicide mission.”